


The Voice

by titC



Series: The Voice [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Matt Murdock's shaky mental health, Post Season 3, flangst, see end notes for potentially spoilery warnings, slapstick tragedy at times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 12:17:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18476062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/titC/pseuds/titC
Summary: Matt just wants to buy coffee, but he starts hearing voices. Well,avoice.





	The Voice

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [PixelByPixel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PixelByPixel) for the beta!  
> Check end notes for possible triggers (spoilery)
> 
> For my [DaredevilBingo](http://daredevilbingo.dreamwidth.org/) prompt _coffee_ and my [MattElektraBingo](https://mattelektrabingo.tumblr.com/) one _did i say that out loud_.

The first reason is the smell. Rich, aromatic, promising wakefulness _and_ a short reprieve from the usual Midtown mix of car exhaust, human sweat, rotting trash, engine oil, and food in various stages of its life – from the Thai place round the corner to what some poor drunk guy threw up last night in the alley Matt just walked past.

So yes, he stops at that coffee shop almost every morning on his way to their new office. Well, the sign on the door is new. The building itself is about as new as the one where Nelson and Murdock, Mark One had been. At least the AC is working fine and they don’t have any Internet issues and, best of all, they’re not crammed into a little room above a butcher’s shop; so there’s that. Not that Ma Nelson’s sandwiches aren’t nice, but Matt is more comfortable keeping some distance. He still feels like he must make amends for the way he’s kept Foggy in the dark, pushed him away and, yes, impersonated him; and while no one in the Nelson clan knows about this it’s still uncomfortable. They’ve always welcomed him, and he hasn’t repaid them well.

So he brings Karen and Foggy coffee in the morning, often gets some donuts with it, and hopes they’ll really forgive him one day. They say they have, but he’s not so sure. No, he’s not.

The entire shop smells of coffee, and it blocks everything else if he focuses on it. He tries to make out all the differences with yesterday’s brew – did they roast the beans longer? Did they mix beans from different places, did they grind them finer or coarser? Did they make it more intense this time? Matt sways a little in the queue. He’s tired from a night out and about and he’s looking forward to this magical, God-given lifesaver. Maybe breathing it in as he waits will help wake him up, or maybe he can order two for himself. Why not, after all? He doesn’t have a lot of money and most of what he makes goes to pay Karen back, but he doesn’t need much anyway. Just enough to pay the bills, get some simple food, and replace his clothes when his black outfit gets ripped. Maggie insists on patching him up, so he’s been able to cut down on antiseptics and suture kits and the like.

Life is good now, right? Matt is back on his feet, he found his mother, and Nelson & Murdock (and Page) is up and running. Fisk is behind bars (again), no undead ninjas have been seen lately, and even the weather is pleasant; but he still can’t sleep. He runs around at night, finds assholes to punch further and further away from Hell’s Kitchen because his neighborhood’s crime rates are down, and he hopes that will tire him out enough to sleep. And it does, for a few hours. Not enough.

Hence the coffee and also his distraction. He’s so lost in his thoughts he doesn’t pay attention to his surroundings, and – crash. Coffee spills everywhere; it burns through his suit. He can hear his shoes squelching into the puddles and the smell is so overpowering it blankets everything else. Someone leads him into a chair, and he makes to stand up again and ask for a mop and apologize but a firm hand on his shoulder keeps him down.

“That idiot walked into you while he was trying to cut in line. Let him deal with it.”

Matt knows that voice. He can’t smell anything, there’s too much coffee everywhere; but that voice… That’s it, he’s lost it. He’s hallucinating, now – or _again_. He hasn’t in a while. But that particular hallucination is not telling him how useless he is, not yet at any rate; so that’s different. New.

The Voice moves around him now, berates the guy that bumped into him and demands he gets fresh coffees and donuts for the blind man he almost bowled over, and Matt sits there for all that time. He’s tired. He can feel the wet patches cool down on his pants, his shirt. He must look terrible, with coffee stains all over his clothes and trying and failing not to shiver. The day has hardly started and he already wants it to be over. He can’t go and face clients like that; he’s got to get back to his apartment and change. He’ll be late, and Karen will pointedly say nothing, and Foggy will ooze worry, again. They don’t try to stop him anymore but they are _concerned_ ; he knows they are. He supposes it’s nice of them. He supposes he should be grateful.

“Come on, Matthew. Let’s get you into a fresh suit,” The Voice says. He won’t give The Voice a name, because he can’t think that name. He can’t think it in public, he’d start having flashbacks of – he can’t.

And The Voice isn’t real anyway, it’s just his own subconscious telling him to make himself presentable for his day job. He mumbles something and leaves the coffee shop and thinks he might not come back in a while, might stay away long enough that the incident is forgotten. The awkward blind man who stumbles into people and can’t even help with the cleanup – ugh. He should be better than that.

Someone calls his name, touches his arm; but Matt just walks faster and leaves it all behind and pretends he doesn’t hear the footsteps behind him on the stairs.

“Matthew,” The Voice says as he opens his door. “You said you let me in, remember? Matthew – ”

He slams the door closed and goes straight to his couch. He ignores the sound of his lock being picked and calls Foggy.

“Hey, so,” and then he stops.

“Matt? Matt, you okay?”

He sighs. “Yeah. Yeah I am. I’ll be a little late this morning, that’s all.”

“What happened?” Fogs sounds so worried, too. He shouldn’t.

“I’m fine, just got a little accident at the coffee shop. Got coffee all over my shirt, went back home for a change.” Matt ignores the sound of things being moved about in his kitchen.

“Oh, all right. Take your time; our first client this morning canceled her appointment.”

“Alright.”

“And Matt, look. You don’t have to bring coffee every morning, you know?”

“It’s good coffee.”

“It is, but…” Matt can almost hear Foggy’s brain changing tracks. “I think even with coffee stains our clients would love you, you know?”

“I’m very lovable.” He’s even smiling as he says it, and he knows Fogs will hear it.

“Jerk,” and Foggy’s voice is fond though unsurprised. He’s not worried anymore: good.

“You know that’s true, buddy,” Matt says, and he lets his phone fall on the cushion next to him. He could fall asleep right here, the familiar city sounds surrounding him – except there’s always a siren, a scream; there’s always a memory to keep him awake. An ache, sometimes. His back twinges when it’s cold, his hips aren’t happy when he does too many high kicks. He’s got migraines, too. It hasn’t been that long. It hasn’t. Not even a year. But he’s not entirely over it, and he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be.

“Don’t go to work at all. Stay here today, rest. I’ll order in something you like. What do you say?”

And there isn’t anyone at all in his apartment, apart from him.

Matt pushes himself up and goes to his closet, feels for the Braille labels to get a white shirt and a gray suit, and doesn’t jerk at all when the hangers are torn off of his hands and someone, something knocks him backward on the bed.

“Clothes can wait.”

He’s hallucinating a dead lover, and is that worse or better than Fisk? Than his father? “You’re not real,” he says. He picks up the clothes and goes to lock himself in the bathroom. He splashes some cold water over his face, feels for the thin new knife scar above his navel that got a bit burned by the coffee. It’s fine. He’s fine. He dresses again, gets out, and a cup is shoved in his hand.

“Drink up, if you insist on leaving again.”

He doesn’t remember getting fresh coffee after the incident, but he must have. Hallucinations don’t order drinks at the counter, right? So he must have. He runs down the stairs, hoofs it to the office, and he’s not horribly late after all.

Except once he gets inside, Foggy and Karen are suspiciously silent and their heartbeats – they’re scared. Why are they scared? The _other_ heartbeat isn’t real, so he ignores it. But he can’t ignore Karen’s and Foggy’s.

“What’s wrong?” He brushes his free hand down his front, but he doesn't feel anything wrong. “More stains?”

“Matt,” Foggy says. His voice is high, like it is when he’s terrified and yet pushing through the fear. Foggy’s braver than he thinks he is. “There’s, um. You know Elektra’s behind you, right?”

“She isn’t.”

“I am.” Oh, it’s The Voice again. This hallucination is so different from Fisk or his father; there’s a heartbeat, a warm smell of humus underscoring that of leather, and then there are those times when The Voice touched him. Manhandled him. Or maybe he just stumbled.

“Matt, I can confirm there’s a woman behind you, and she’s black-haired and – yeah, okay, that doesn't help.” Karen’s chair slides back against the linoleum. “She looks like she’s laughing at you?”

“There’s no one behind me.” He turns to his little office and almost gets there before Foggy stops him. “Let go, Fogs.”

“Matt, there is a dead woman in our office, and she probably has about a million knives on her and is going to kill us all and the only thing between our being turned into kebab and survival is you.”

“You’ll be fine. Hallucinations can’t hurt you.”

“ _Hallucinations?_ ”

“I used to have them a couple months ago, but they’re just that. Not real.”

“O-kay, we’ll go back later on why you never mentioned that. Matt, we’re seeing and hearing her too. If she’s _your_ hallucination, how can…?”

He smiles. “Well, maybe this conversation is only in my mind too. I have some stuff to catch up on,” he adds before fleeing into his office. He closes the door, leans his cane against the desk, and fires up his computer. One earbud in, the Braille reader out, and he’s ready.

He can still hear The Voice, however. “Two knives, Franklin. Just the two. And I’m not dead. I got better.”

“You remember me?”

“Of course I do. Both of you.”

“I thought you were, um. Insane. And then dead.”

“Debatable. There were some rough patches, but I got over it,” The Voice says.

“You can’t stay here.” That’s Foggy. Not-real-Foggy. Is Matt actually in the office? He’s starting to wonder. This is a pretty intense hallucination; it involves several people, and… damn, did he get knocked in the head hard enough he’s lying unconscious somewhere? Or maybe – maybe it’s just a very vivid dream. Matt jams the second earbud into his other ear and focuses on work and hopes he wakes up soon.

 

Matt, of course, doesn’t wake up. He loses himself in legalese until an insistent knocking on his door brings him out of it. It’s Foggy, asking if he’d like to go out for lunch.

“Nah, I’m good. You and Karen go.”

“Did you eat breakfast?”

“Maybe he’s waiting for the zombie girlfriend to come back,” Karen says.

“I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“She looked pretty real to me, you know.”

They’re all hallucinations; that’s the only explanation that makes sense. Or maybe dreams. He’s dreaming, yes. He’s finally sleeping, and he’s dreaming that she’s back and following him, and that other people see her too. But they don’t. They can’t. She’s dead. _Ergo_ , nothing is real in this situation. “She’s not, and you’re not.”

“What?” Foggy doesn’t like it. Well, too bad. It’s not even Foggy, anyway.

“Matt,” dream-Karen says. She comes in the office and perches on his desk. “What are you saying, exactly?” He shakes his head. Can’t they leave him be? He’d like to go back to a nice, deep, dreamless sleep now. “Do you think we’re hallucinations too? Did you have them often, before?”

“It’s alright. I knew what they were. I know you’re not real. It’s fine.”

“Right. Matt, we’re taking you home, and you’re going to sleep, and you’re not going to do – anything else. Tonight, I mean. And we’re going to get you to a doctor.”

What? No! They’d see his scars, they’d see… no, he can’t. Too many questions. Maybe Claire, but he hasn't been in touch for so long… she has no reason to come help, now. “Foggy,” he starts. Then, he remembers that nothing happening here is real. There will be no doctor, and he’s already asleep. And soon he can be dreaming he’s sleeping, that sounds nice. “Okay.”

“Wow. He’s really out of it, right?” Karen sounds troubled, too.

“Yep. Come on Matty, let’s get you up.”

He lets Fogs and Karen pull him up and steer him to the door, down the stairs, into the streets. Karen asks if they should get a taxi but Foggy says it’ll be faster to walk at this hour, and it’s only a few blocks; so they walk. Matt doesn’t hear anything strange, but he knows better. Once he’s in his apartment they make him sit on his couch and he hears them poke into his cupboards, his closet. Foggy shoves clothes at him, the shapeless, comfy kind, and Karen tuts at his fridge.

“Are you living on beer and granola, Matt?”

“Not at the same time,” he answers.

Foggy sighs. “Put these on, okay? You look like you could use some sleep, so.”

“I’m already sleeping.”

“Ah, yes. We’re all figments of your imagination.”

“Your imagination sucks, by the way.” Karen’s heels go tap, tap, tap around the couch. “Why are you still wearing that suit?”

Matt shrugs, and shuffles into his bedroom. If they want him to change, he will. He hears them behind the sliding door, talking about food and doctors and head injuries.

“Matt,” Foggy calls. “Are you injured anywhere? Did you lose blood or something? Do you have a concussion?”

“He wouldn’t tell us anyway.”

“You’re not wrong. Okay then. Matt, I’m coming in,” Foggy says, and he’s suddenly right in front of Matt, removing his glasses and putting them on the bedside table. They clink softly, Foggy is careful. “Tell me if anything hurts, all right?” And he starts touching his head gently, parting the hair and feeling for any bump there; he’s pulling down the zipper on Matt’s sweatshirt and going _oh, no_ and _oh, Matt_ at every scar he sees. But only a few are new, and the worst one is maybe two weeks old. Foggy’s hands are warm as he gently pushes down on his ribs, and Matt must make a face because he immediately stops. “Broken?”

“Bruised. Old.”

Foggy turns him around and looks at his back with the same care and quiet disquiet before pulling the shirt back up Matt’s arms and zipping it closed. “Do you go out every night?”

“I’m fine.” He’d hoped he’d be dream-sleeping by now, and they’re still here.

“And we all know what that means.” Karen has brought him something, something hot that smells nice. Tea. An evening blend of herbs; fennel and licorice and peppermint and anise.

“I’d rather have coffee.”

“No coffee for you, buddy.” Foggy leads him to the bed, and Matt hears him pull the comforter down.

They make him sit on his bed, prod him until he’s sitting there drinking his tea, and when he’s done they take the mug away and cover him with the comforter and tell him he’d better not leave the bed until dinnertime, at which point someone would bring him food.

They don’t say who, but he doesn’t care.

Finally, Matt sleeps.

 

He wakes to quiet heartbeats in his living room. He knows them, he thinks, but he’s still sleep-fuzzy and can’t quite place them. He reaches out to his clock and it says, s _ix PM_. He slept a lot, then. Shit, he missed work; Foggy and Karen are going to be pissed at him. He should call them, apologize, and – fuck, yes. People in his home. Not good.

He half falls out of bed and slides the door open, and it hits him. It’s Maggie and Claire, drinking tea in his kitchen.

“Hey, Matt. Feeling better?” Claire is right by his side, already checking him out just like Foggy, dream-Foggy, did.

“Why are you here?”

“You’re in a welcoming mood, Matthew.”

He’s starting to understand, now. He got hit in the head too hard, he didn’t wake up for work, and Foggy sent the cavalry. And he had really disturbing dreams. But Claire? They haven’t seen each other in a while. “Hi?” he tries again.

“Check his ribs,” Maggie says. “He’s been pretending it doesn’t hurt for a while but he won’t let me get near them.”

“I’m right here,” he says, but he lets Claire finish her prodding, then listen to his insides with her stethoscope.

“Not _all_ here, according to your friend.” Maggie takes his arm and leads him to his couch. “He called me this morning and said you needed to be watched until he could find a doctor.”

“Watched?”

“What do you remember, Matt? Since yesterday.” Claire has pushed up his sleeve and is wrapping his wrist.

“I don’t – Claire, I thought we weren’t talking.” He feels a bit silly saying this in front of Maggie, but he needs to know.

“Not since we all thought you dead and buried under a skyscraper, no. You didn’t get in touch after that; what’s a girl supposed to think?”

“You said you didn’t need me in your life.”

He hears Maggie sit on a kitchen stool. She’s finding all this very funny, from the muffled noises she makes.

“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Claire’s voice is annoyed, but she’s still very careful with his wrist. “Danny’s set me up not too far from here, to help idiots like you who can’t go to hospitals.”

“Oh.”

“Will you answer her question now?” Maggie’s voice is stern, like he remembers it from his childhood; but also fond as he knows it can be, too. He tries not to think of how she’d have scolded him as his mother, if she’d stayed. If things had been different.

“Right. Okay. So uh, yesterday, I got back here from the office at about, maybe seven?” He tells them about hanging the day’s suit, having some oatmeal, putting the Daredevil clothes on, and coming back in the early morning hours. He tells them he doesn’t remember getting hit in the head, and everything seemed normal until the coffee shop, and that’s when he realized things were not. That he first thought the voice was an hallucination, then when it turned out Foggy and Karen were also seeing her he understood that nothing was real, and that he was dreaming. And then, waking up here. “I’m sorry Foggy called you. I just overslept,” he says.

“You didn’t.” Maggie shoves something at him, and he takes it. Fabric – a shirt. It smells like cold coffee. “I also found your coffee-stained suit. I’ll drop it at the dry-cleaner for you.”

“But…”

“If you say we’re not real either I’m taking your Daredevil suit away.”

“I have spares.” And it’s just cargo pants and a shirt, really. And boots. Those are expensive to replace.

“You think we haven’t found them?” Well. Maggie would always find the candy hoards at St Agnes, so he can believe it.

“Matt, you’re not hallucinating, and you’re not dreaming. We’re really here.”

“You can’t be, because then it means… it means… you can’t be.”

“Look, if you survived Midland Circle, why not her too?” Claire takes one of his hands between hers. “Don’t you trust Foggy when he says she was here? Or Karen?”

“I trust real-them, not dream-them. I can’t trust my dreams.”

“He said you admitted you had hallucinations before, too. Did you do a brain scan back then?”

Maggie leaves her stool and comes to stand right behind the couch. Her fingers go through his hair, and he closes his eyes. “He was in a bad shape, when Paul – Father Lantom – brought him to St Agnes. Broken everywhere, and obviously concussed. He was more or less comatose for a long time. But we couldn’t bring him to a hospital, and our little infirmary doesn't have that kind of equipment. Matthew was just stubborn enough to recover what he’d lost.” She give a sharp tug on a lock of hair. “And lucky. Very lucky.”

“I can do a scan at my clinic,” Claire says. “Just to rule out any lingering issue.”

Matt sighs. He knows they won’t give him a choice, anyway. His dreams won’t let him be. He wishes he could just turn them off, but he can’t. He’s a prisoner in his head, and he sort of wants to cry. He wants out. Is there something you can’t do in a dream, something to test his theory? He tries to hold his breath discreetly, but he can’t do it for long because to hold in his frustration he’s got to breathe slowly, slowly. If he doesn’t he’s going to scream and sob and yell and they’ll think he’s crazy for real. Except nothing is real so it doesn’t matter, right?

Fuck, he’s getting a headache. Can you get a headache in a dream?

Oh, he’s got an idea. If he gets his adrenaline to spike it’s going to wake him up, right? He tears himself from Maggie and Claire’s hands, and goes to his bedroom. He hears them following him and he knows he doesn't have much time. They want to keep him in the dream, they want him stuck in here with them, they’re not Claire and Maggie, they’re just a product of his imagination. They’re his inner monsters who are cutting him off from the real world.

He goes to the window, finds the sash, and is already halfway out when four hands pull him back in. They’re yelling at him, they’re pinning him to the floor, and this time he’s crying in between taking great big gulps of air. His heartbeat is fast and the adrenaline is pumping all right, and he’s stuck in this nightmare. There’s no escape.

Or maybe, maybe it’s real. Maybe he’s really sick in the head. Someone helps him sit up and holds him tight, and he slowly realizes the small voice repeating, “I’m not dreaming, I’m not dreaming,” is his.

 

He calms down after a while. Or he doesn’t have any fight left in him; he’s not sure which. All he knows is he’s either stuck in a nightmare or gone insane, and he can’t tell what’s worse. How can he fight his own mind? What thoughts can he trust? Can his brain double-cross itself if he tries anything?

He’s being pulled upright and he follows. They make him put on shoes, worn sneakers; a thick jacket lands on his shoulders. Someone puts glasses on his nose; they sit a bit crooked but he doesn’t readjust them. He can feel they’re the bigger ones he’d found back when he was hiding under St Agnes. Is his subconscious telling him something? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care, really. He lets everything happen; he doesn’t even know if any of it is real. If he tries to escape, won’t his own mind know it? Won’t it turn back on him? He’s led through the door and down the stairs, and then to a car. He briefly considers escaping then, but there’s someone new talking to him. Danny. What’s Danny doing here?

“Hey, Matt. You’re not looking so hot, but it’s good to see you, you know. Alive.” He squeezes Matt’s biceps, and Matt is horrified he hasn’t seen (hah) it coming. Danny must have felt his aborted punch, because he tightens his grip until he’s sure Matt won’t swing at him. “Hey, sorry, didn’t mean to surprise you.”

“Why are you here?” Matt feels like he’s repeating himself, but really that question keeps being relevant.

“I called him,” Claire says. “A private car sounded better than a cab right now.”

“Oh.” It’s not a small car, he realizes. It sounds expensive. There’s leather under his hands when he shuffles in, and he ends up between Claire and Maggie. Danny’s in front of him. A really big car, actually. “I should have called you,” he tells Danny.

“Well, yeah. But I heard you were busy, right? Anyways, I’m just glad you’re here, really.”

Danny keeps talking, on and on, and Matt stops listening. The car’s vibrations lull him into a light doze; he can tell they’re not moving very fast. There's honking outside, but it’s muffled. Heavy traffic, as heard from inside a fancy vehicle. It’s a new experience. He hopes this time he doesn’t end up in the Hudson. Maybe that would wake him up at last?

“So I learned your crazy girlfriend is not dead after all, and I thought maybe I should stick around just in case, you know?”

Matt is thrown back into awake-land. Dream-awake, maybe, unless he’s actually insane. He’s not ruling it out yet. “Not you too,” he says.

“He thinks he’s hallucinating, well, everything and everyone.” He can hear Claire shake her head, how her hair slides against her clothes.

“Ouch, man, that’s a bit extreme.”

Matt doesn’t answer. He wishes he could leave the conversation, the car. The dream. Go back to his regular life, the days between the office and the courts, and the nights all around the neighborhood. It’s familiar and he can balance it all, now. It’s working for him, it _is_ ; but this? Being treated like delicate porcelain, like he needs to be glued back together, like he can’t decide for himself? He hates it. But that’s probably why that’s his nightmare. His brain knows him too well.

The car slows down and it feels like they’re going underground, but he tries not to tense too much. Claire’s hand wraps around his wrist, the one without gauze around it, and he doesn’t want to admit it but it helps. Maggie takes his hand on his other side, and Danny must see it. It’s humiliating, but it’s not true. Not real. It doesn’t count. No one actually sees him. No one actually holds his hand to comfort him. He doesn’t need comfort anyway, he’s not underground. There’s no building above his head. He’s fine. He’s fine.

“The clinic has private access to the Rand hospital, in case I need the labs or some equipment. It’s easier.”

“I don’t want to go to a hospital,” Matt says.

“We’re going to the clinic; we’re just parking under the hospital.”

The car stops, and they all clamber out. He turns his head left and right, listens to the echoes of the vast space. Underground parking lots always have a particular feel to them. Rubber and oil, concrete, paint, pillars everywhere but far away walls. Stale air.

“Come on, Matthew. Stop dawdling.” Maggie bumps his arm and he takes her elbow, lets her take him wherever his subconscious has decided it’s going to torture him next. They end up in an elevator, then a long corridor, then finally a smaller room. There’s a big machine in the middle.

“We’re going to take an MRI scan,” Claire tells him. “Are you wearing anything metallic?” He shakes his head, then remembers the cross around his neck. He pulls it out and takes it off, and Maggie takes it. “Your sweatshirt, Matt.”

“What?”

“The zipper. It’s metallic. I can give you a shirt, if you’d like.”

He shrugs. “It’s fine.” He takes the sweatshirt off too, and hears Danny’s breath hiss through his teeth.

“You’re, uh. Well, they say chicks dig scars, so I guess that’s… good?” Matt ignores him.

“Right.” Claire is in front of him now, gently pushing him back on a sort of table. “So, here is how it’s going to go. You’re going to lie down on this,” she says as she pats the plastic surface on which he is sitting, “and it’s going to slide into the machine behind you.” She puts something in his hand. “Earplugs. It can get noisy inside, so don’t be surprised if you hear thumping sounds. There’s a speaker and a mic inside too, so we’ll be able to talk at all times. I’m going to put a sort of cage over your head; that’s normal. Just relax, and stay as still as you can. When it’s done I’ll send the results to a neurologist, and I'll let you know if you need anything.”

“I don’t need anything.”

“You do, at least rest. You haven’t taken a break since you… came back, have you? You haven’t entirely recovered.”

He shrugs, and he hears her mutter, “Damn martyr,” but he doesn’t care what she thinks. She’s not real.

He toes his sneakers off, lets her push him down on the cold, flat plastic, puts the earplugs in, and lets everything else happen around him. He should have taken her offer of a shirt, because he’s cold.

And then it starts.

He hears nothing but the machine whirring and thumping and beeping around him. Claire’s voice comes a few times through the speaker so he gives her a few vague hums in answer, but nothing else comes from outside. He loses his sense of time; he doesn’t know if he’s inside the machine for a minute or an hour. He holds himself as still as he can and tries not to think of how the machine feels like a coffin. The walls aren’t closing in on him, he’s not choking on dirt, he’s fine. He’s fine.

Finally the table he’s lying on moves out of the machine, and he can finally breathe. He sits up as soon as the cage around his head is removed, takes great big lungful of air that comes from an entire room and not a – a – a _death tube_ , and then he takes the earplugs out.

“Let me go!” he hears, and he almost falls off of the table. Bed. Whatever. He recognizes it, of course. It’s The Voice, full of barely contained fury and violence.

“No,” he whispers, so low he doesn’t think anyone hears him.

“Let me go! I don’t want to hurt you but I _will_ if you don’t let go of me. I don’t care if you’re the Iron Fist!”

Maggie sits next to Matt and wraps his shirt around his shoulders. “You’re not hallucinating,” she says mildly. She doesn’t seem to care that two people are on the verge of fighting four feet from her. “But you _were_ having a panic attack.”

“No.”

“Yes,” and that’s – three people. Maggie, Claire, and – The Voice.

“I pulled you out when your heart rate and breathing started to go too fast,” Claire says. He realizes he hasn’t heard her come back into the room.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” The Voice says softly. Danny stops trying to restrain a ghost that doesn’t exist. Matt can almost taste the calm, now. “You don’t know what it’s like, to have everything fall down on you. You can’t move, you can’t breathe. You’re not sure you’re still alive. You’re not sure the person you’re with…” The Voice stops. The only noise is that of the neon light above them. “Matthew.” Footsteps, light but sure, come towards him. “I thought you were dead. When I crawled out of that wreckage I thought you were dead, and I turned against them all. The Hand, the Chaste… no one’s left, Matthew. I’m free of them, now. I’m free.”

“You’re not real,” he repeats. “You’re not real.”

“Matthew…”

The Voice gets closer and it’s like a vise around his neck, he can’t breathe, there’s a drill in his head and it’s covering, smothering everything; it’s terror and blank noise and he’s backing away from The Voice; he slides off from the table and he backs into a wall and raises his fists but there’s no way out, he’s cornered; he can’t hear anything but the rush of blood in his ears, the frantic beat of his heart in a chest that feels too small –

Someone touches his hand and he lashes out but he doesn’t connect; he doesn’t understand. He shakes his head. He thinks people are talking to him but he can’t make out the words. It’s kind of a relief, really, because it means he can’t hear The Voice. His legs are wobbly, the drywall is cool and unyielding against his back, and he lets himself slide down until he’s sitting on the floor. No one comes near him, no one that that he can feel, and little by little he calms down. His heart slows down, his chest expands again. He can make out the words.

“… hear me?”

“Claire?”

“Matt, are you with us now?”

He opens his mouth to answer and tilts his head. The air tastes like salt. “Are you crying?” he asks Claire.

“No, I’m not. It’s not me.”

“Who?” He can’t imagine it’s Maggie, he can’t imagine it’s Danny. He touches his own face, but his cheeks are dry.

“Why do you think I’m not real?” It’s The Voice. It sounds wet, thick. Different from before. “As soon as I knew _you_ were alive I came back for you, but you… you’d rather _I_ were dead, is that it? Matthew, is that it?”

“No,” he says.

“Then what?” The Voice is furious. “Are you afraid of me?” He shakes his head.

“Someone’s crying,” he tells no one. Everyone.

“You know who it is, Matt.” Claire stands up, leaves him cold and alone against the wall. “You two should talk it out, maybe.”

“Can we leave them alone?” There’s a surge of static electricity in the air, it feels like Danny’s fist.

“I think we can. We’ll be right next door, okay?” Claire steps away from him, and he wants to hold her back but he can’t. He shouldn’t.

The familiar sound of an ankle-length, coarse nun’s habit, and Maggie is putting something in his hand. The little cross she kept for him while he was in the not-coffin, he remembers. “You’re making her cry, Matthew. That’s not very suave. Do better.” She’s smiling, he can hear it. Her knees pop as she straightens from her crouch, and she adds, “He called for you, you know. When he first arrived. He called your name, again and again. He was delirious, but he remembered you. Then what had happened came back to him, and…” Maggie sighs, and leaves after Claire and Danny.

It’s only him and The Voice, now. And the big machine. He’s never getting back in there, not if he has any say in it.

“Matthew.” He turns his head aside. He wishes he could see, just so he could _look away_. That would be more meaningful, he thinks. Carry more weight. He’s got to do what he can with what he has, though. Or, in this case, doesn’t have. The air shift in front of him and The Voice sits down by his side, almost but not quite touching. “Matthew, say my name.” He opens his mouth, closes it. No, he can’t. He won’t. “Please.” He hears the tears in her throat. He’s got the same in his.

The Voice doesn’t say anything after that, and he tries to relax but he can’t pretend he’s alone. He can hear her, smell her. She sounds alive; she smells almost like she did when she first died in his arms, with just that little bit of fresh dirt she’s had around her since then. Like new, rich, fertile dirt that’s about to bloom. Orchids, he remembers. She liked orchids.

He puts his hand on the cold tile, tries to control his breathing. He’s terrified. He doesn’t dare move his fingers to hers. Touch her. He can’t. “If you’re really here,” he starts, then he has to stop. He feels her tension ratchet up. “I can’t take it. If you’re alive, then you can die again. I can’t…” and that’s it. He can’t keep speaking. He raises his knees and curls around them and he feels the wetness spread on his knees, he can’t stop it, he can’t stop the tears. If Stick could see him… But he’s dead, and he’s not coming back. She killed him.

“I’m not dying, Matthew; I’ve never been so alive. I belong to no one now.” She closes the gap between them, touches his hair gently, his back. He doesn’t move away. “I don’t know yet who I want to be, but I know what I want.”

“I let you in,” he whispers.

“Yes.” Her head rests against his, and he turns his to the side so her hair fans all over his face. “It’s your choice. I’m not taking anyone’s choice away from them. Never again.” She sounds as fierce as he knows her to be.

“Elektra.” Did he say it out loud?

“Yes,” she says. “Yes.” He did.

They breathe each other’s air and it feels like she’s filling his lungs and his chest and his entire body. If she dies again, then he’ll die with her.

But maybe they’ll live, this time.

**Author's Note:**

> Matt has a shakier and shakier grasp on reality throughout most of the fic, and denies his own perceptions.  
> Mentions of hallucinations (some canon), being a prisoner in one's brain, what looks like (but isn't) a suicide attempt, general breakdown.  
> MRI scan.  
> But happy ending!
> 
> As soon as he was vaguely vertical again in S3 he went back to Daredevil-ing, although after getting buried under a building he's got obvious brain trauma (among all the other trauma, because _Matt Murdock_ ) on top of his already not-great mental health, so... yeah.


End file.
